Franciscæ meæ Laudes  

"Does it not seem to the reader, as to me, that the language of the last Latin decadence - that supreme sigh of a robust person already transformed and prepared for spiritual life -is singularly fitted to express passion as it is understood and felt by the modern world ? Mysticism is the other end of the magnet of which Catullus and his band, brutal and purely epidermic poets, knew only the sensual pole. In this wonderful language, solecisms and barbarisms seem to express the forced carelessness of a passion which forgets itself, and mocks at rules . The words, used in a novel sense , reveal the charming awkwardness of a barbarian from the North, kneeling before Roman Beauty."--"Franciscæ meæ Laudes" by Baudelaire

"It is to the profound and penetrating genius of Baudelaire that we owe the first clear apprehension of the legitimate part which decadence plays in literature. We may trace it, indeed, in his own style, clear, pure, and correct as that style always remains, as well as in his literary preferences. He was a good Latinist, and his favourite Latin authors were Apuleius, Juvenal, Petronius, St. Augustine, Tertullian, and other writers in prose and verse of the early Christian Church. He himself wrote a love-poem in rhymed Latin verse, adding to it a note concerning the late Latin decadence regarded as "the supreme sign of a vigorous person already transformed and prepared for the spiritual life... . In this marvellous tongue," he added, "solecism and barbarism seem to me to render the forced negligence of a passion which forgets itself and mocks at rules. Words taken in a new meaning reveal the charming awkwardness of the northern barbarian kneeling before the Roman beauty." But the best early statement of the meaning of decadence in style--though doubtless inspired by Baudelaire--was furnished by Gautier in 1868 in the course of the essay on Baudelaire which is probably the most interesting piece of criticism he ever achieved."--À rebours (1884) by Joris-Karl Huysmans